Using remittances as a topical background, this project addresses the following questions: 1 how remittances arise out of a translocal relationship — that is, real movements of people, commodities, ideas, and symbols — and cross spatial distances and borders with a certain regularity; 2 how these remittances create arenas in which the processes of territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization take place and are negotiated; and 3 whether transnational economic spaces emerge out of these negotiations as a spatial format.

Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples, Austronesian speakers with cultural ties to other Pacific Islanders, have encountered waves of outside political, cultural and economic forces. While their political situation has markedly improved with Taiwan’s democratization, their social and economic marginalization remains an issue. Reflecting recent shifts in Taiwan towards more human-centered, post-modern development policies, Atayal People of Jianshi Township have started a movement promoting community values and the transition to organic farming. This paper explores this transition and the work of the Jianshi “Farmers’ Academy.” Their aims are to collectivize organic agricultural production, transportation and marketing, promote and share traditional crops and knowledge as well as connect spread-out villages through shared culture, education and development. Situated in the broader contexts of Alternative Food Networks and Alternative Economic Spaces, which are typically explored in Western contexts, and Alternative Development (typically explored in the developing world), this qualitative research examines these marginalized communities’ efforts to formulate a grassroots model of culturally and environmentally sustainable development. The findings suggest that the people in the research area are choosing organic farming for various economic and non-material factors as many of their livelihood goals are culturally bound, outside the purview of conventional macroeconomic theories and critical of mainstream capitalist practices, thus supporting a more locally informed, pluralistic concept of economic development.

<p>This thesis begins by making two observations. First, that the regional economic landscapes in which we all live our daily lives, and which provide the basis for employment and prosperity, are constantly changing. Second, that one of the most popular strategies currently pursued by regions and nations for coping with such change, relies heavily on innovation within a few high-tech industries, biotech being one prominent example. The thesis is an investigation into the potential – and limits – of biotech-based development policies for creating renewal and economic growth at the local, regional or national scales. How does it really work when a team of biotech researchers develops a new invention? How can a small Swedish town manage to attract large foreign direct investments and stay competitive in the global biotech landscape? How is the performance of biotech knowledge workers affected by the places they live in, go to, leave, and make up? What impact can a biotech firm have on the local economic landscape in which it is located? These are the kind of questions that are studied in the four papers that make up this thesis. The thesis develops a conceptual framework within which we can better understand the extent to which mono-territorial actors, like regional and national policymakers, can influence high-tech sectors like biotech; sectors that are polycentric in nature and only partly take place in, or pass through, regional and national territories.</p>

This thesis begins by making two observations. First, that the regional economic landscapes in which we all live our daily lives, and which provide the basis for employment and prosperity, are constantly changing. Second, that one of the most popular strategies currently pursued by regions and nations for coping with such change, relies heavily on innovation within a few high-tech industries, biotech being one prominent example. The thesis is an investigation into the potential – and limits – of biotech-based development policies for creating renewal and economic growth at the local, regional or national scales. How does it really work when a team of biotech researchers develops a new invention? How can a small Swedish town manage to attract large foreign direct investments and stay competitive in the global biotech landscape? How is the performance of biotech knowledge workers affected by the places they live in, go to, leave, and make up? What impact can a biotech firm have on the local economic landscape in which it is located? These are the kind of questions that are studied in the four papers that make up this thesis. The thesis develops a conceptual framework within which we can better understand the extent to which mono-territorial actors, like regional and national policymakers, can influence high-tech sectors like biotech; sectors that are polycentric in nature and only partly take place in, or pass through, regional and national territories.